Slumlord or Landlord? #3 Put On Another Sweater!

We had been living in our new San Francisco apartment for about six months when we started to wonder about our new landlords. We're they landlords or slumlords? At the time we were two women and a man living in their apartment. If something needed to be fixed then we would fix it ourselves. If something big needed to be fixed then we asked our guy roommate 'Wes' to call the landlords. They gave him little trouble and had the item fixed right away. But if ''Sarah' or I called then the lady landlord gave us a lot of attitude. She would also try to get out of spending the money. I remember thinking 'This is not going to be fun.'

I really enjoyed the location of our home which was located on top of a hill. It had views from the roof, washer and dryer (which is unheard of in San Francisco) the back bedrooms faced a garden, located near a cable car line and the kitchen was huge. My roommates were great and Wes and I became good friends. He had so much to share. He was ten years older then me, loved all women (Manwhore was his other name) and traveled the world making documentary films. He fascinated me.

I started to learn, when I met a new woman that Wes was 'dating' eating breakfast the next morning to not call them by name, but call them either sweetie or honey. Neither Wes or I would probably see them again. And then Wes got an opportunity to travel to Costa Rica for three months to film. So he decided to store his stuff and move out.

Even though things had gone well with Wes, Sarah and I decided to get a third female roommate to move in.  We chose 'Jillian' to move in and enjoyed all three of us living together until we had small problems in the apartment. Once again I called the landlords and was met with resistance.

This was a fun game of cat and mouse that we played. 

Instead we fixed things ourself to remove the hassle. And then the heat gave out in January, during six weeks of pouring rain and temperatures low enough at night that can have a fire on. (Yes, I know San Francisco does not get that cold as I am from Canada :)

I asked myself 'There was no way that the landlords would let us go without heat was there?' Of course there was. Many calls were made back and forth. We were told to put on more fires, use space heaters and that they were working on replacing the heat system. This took three weeks without heat. 

We finally decided to call the rental board and were given the advice to write letters to the landlords documenting the incident. Three copies were made. One was sent to the landlord, one sent to the rental board and we kept the other.

Imagine the look on the landlords face when she received that letter. Now imagine her voice on the phone when she called me.

Landlord "Yes, Laura we received your letter. There was no need for you to get the San Francisco rental board involved."

Me "Yes, sorry there was a need as we are very cold and this has taken weeks." (I was shaking in my boots.)

And then the Landlord said" Can't you just put on another sweater?"

Me "I am wearing three!"

This lit the fire under her and our heat was fixed the next day. Have you ever dealt with a Slumlord? How would you have dealt with this situation? Check out my guest post on Fifi Flowers blog today. I loved writing about an American in Paris. Thanx again Fifi!